6 ms·

Joint statement of scientists and NGOs on the EU’s proposed eIDAS reform

231 points by sjm217 3y ago

dwheeler 3y ago
"In summary, we strongly warn against the currently proposed trilogue agreement, as it fails to properly respect the right to privacy of citizens and secure online communications; without establishing proper safeguards as outlined above, it instead substantially increases the potential for harm." The Open Source Security Foundation (OpenSSF) has co-signed the Industry Joint Statement on Article 45 in the EU’s eIDAS Regulation, indicating that "Those provisions are likely to weaken the security of the Internet as a whole": https://openssf.org/blog/2023/11/02/openssf-co-signs-industry-joint-statement-on-article-45-in-the-eus-eidas-regulation/ https://openssf.org/blog/2023/11/02/openssf-co-signs-industr...
- EGreg 3y ago
  Good morning. It has actually been happening all around the world, not just in the EU. Given how governments encroached on crypto and ad tech and social tech and in the last 10 years, the writing is on the wall for end-to-end encryption next. They have to know ALL your communications: I wrote a summary of the countries in the world that have already undermined it, banned it or on the way to banning it: https://community.qbix.com/t/the-coming-war-on-end-to-end-encryption/214 https://community.qbix.com/t/the-coming-war-on-end-to-end-en... To be clear: EU here is backdooring https encryption. While also moving to ban end-to-end encryption (Spain leading the way).
  - red_admiral 3y ago
    The pushback against ad tech - or more precisely tracking tech - is hardly the same thing. One of the EU's moves will greatly improve privacy, another one will harm it. A world is possible where we have end-to-end encryption AND a ban on profiling people online without their consent.
    - EGreg 3y ago
      Sure, and a world is possible when we have other types of tech, too. For example we can have zero-knowledge proofs to access online sites and prove we’re over 18. But the UK government has already passed a law requiring all websites to KYC their members with a passport. And Utah recently passed a law also protecting children on social sites and I asked their politicians directly how they will enforce it — a likely candidate will be requiring ID from everyone. But the governments when all is said and done don’t care about your privacy. https://www.biometricupdate.com/202309/uk-passes-online-safety-bill-paving-the-way-to-biometric-age-verification https://www.biometricupdate.com/202309/uk-passes-online-safe...
      - ruiisnwn 3y ago
        [dead]
arp242 3y ago
Dupe from yesterday: Last Chance to fix eIDAS: Secret EU law threatens Internet security - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38109494 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38109494 - Nov 2023 (280 comments)
- vaylian 3y ago
  That's a related but different page on the same topic
  - arp242 3y ago
    It has the letter literally in the first sentence. Do we need to have a story about ever possible page on this? Of course not.
sjm217 3y ago
Some press coverage from Computer Weekly https://www.computerweekly.com/news/366557952/EU-eIDAS-reforms-should-be-actively-resisted-say-experts https://www.computerweekly.com/news/366557952/EU-eIDAS-refor... and The Record https://therecord.media/eu-urged-to-drop-law-website-authentication-certificates https://therecord.media/eu-urged-to-drop-law-website-authent...
gbil 3y ago
Good timing I think to remind you of the upcoming Firefox changes as discussed here https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38009663 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38009663 EDIT: for context
- galadran 3y ago
  As I commented there, you've misunderstood this change. There's a difference between certificates distributed with the OS and certificates added to the OS by a user. Right now Firefox ignores both. This change ONLY picks up the certificates added to the OS by a user. Firefox will continue to ignore the certificates included with the OS store by default.
  - gbil 3y ago
    Literally in the bugzilla entry is stated either by user or administrator so either you misunderstood or you need to raise this directly to the bug for correction EDIT: for clarity, something I should have done from the beginning, I checked the affected code, they clearly remove warnings around security.enterprise_roots.enabled preference and enable it by default. This is the preference that was added back in the day to control if the browser will allow root certificates added to the OS no matter the source (user or system context) and now they change it to true by default. I think this provides more clarity but feel free to search the affected code for references that indicate that only part of the root certificate store is trusted
    - xoa 3y ago
      Late so don't if you will see this, but from the very beginning, the security.enterprise_roots.enabled preference always stated it applied to certificates added, not those included by default, eg [0]. System vs User context is still different from baked-in vs added. On macOS for example the System keychain contains certificates added that are then accessible by all users and can only be added by an Administrator, and the separate System Roots keychain holds the root certificates (151 on the Mac I'm sitting in front of) that Apple ships with the OS. Firefox reading from both the "login" and "System" keychains doesn't mean reading from "System Roots". The suggested release notes for the bug report you linked reinforces this [1] (capitalization emphasis added): >[Suggested wording]: By default, Firefox will now use TLS trust anchors (e.g., certificates) ADDED to the operating system by the user or an administrator. This works on Windows, macOS, and Android, and it can be turned off in the "Privacy & Security" section of Firefox settings, under "Certificates". If you think all of these descriptions have been wrong all along from the code, that'd definitely be worth bringing up on Bugzilla. Personally I'm happy to have it enabled by default vs always needing to remember to do so if it's working as described. I think support for one's own CAs should be encouraged even the overall UX around running your own CA is mediocre right now. ---- 0: https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/how-disable-enterprise-roots-preference https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/how-disable-enterprise-... : >"Mozilla has added an Enterprise Roots preference to Firefox as a solution to the problem. This preference can be used to import any root certificate authorities (CAs) that have been added to the operating system, to resolve your TLS connection error. You can determine if a website is relying on an imported root certificate by clicking the Site Information icon in the address bar." 1: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1848815 https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1848815
throwawaaarrgh 3y ago
Wow. Does the EU intend on basically killing their economies? Online commerce is a huge deal and would be heavily impacted if people didn't trust their connections.
- mqus 3y ago
  Well, for now most people do trust the states and don't know the implications of this. The EU could have just as well modified e-commerce and other pages before everything was encrypted. I also don't know how certificate pinning is impacted by this (which would mean that simply creating another cert from a EU root cert would at the very least be noticable)
- turminal 3y ago
  People will trust their connections regardless of this.
- parski 3y ago
  I don't think people know what connections are, let alone hold a position on wether to trust them or not.
- severino 3y ago
  Why would people worry? We already have mobile phones, televisions, cars, etc., continuously monitoring and sending private information about ourselves and our relatives to external parties that we may don't even know about. This -if comes to be true- would just mean that more parties could have access to our data. But who cares once we are already giving it for free?
  - EGreg 3y ago
    We aren’t giving away all the https data for free. Not even close. Next they will ban other certs other than their own. Like Dubai did or Monaco. https://community.qbix.com/t/the-coming-war-on-end-to-end-encryption/214 https://community.qbix.com/t/the-coming-war-on-end-to-end-en...
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
TheFuzzball 3y ago
> The proposed eIDAS revision gives Member States the possibility of inserting root certificates at will [..] That should've been a clear problem when architecting this system for anyone that knows how PKI works. Control and transparency around CAs (especially roots) is extremely important for web security. Did they not consider issuing citizens with WebAuthn certificates, or working with browser vendors to support using client certificates (since they'd only need to be trusted by the server, not the client)? I am confused.
- jeroenhd 3y ago
  Knowing the EU is behind this, I wouldn't be surprised if the people making decisions about this are even aware of any technology beyond Windows XP. The funny thing is that several European governments have actually operated certificate authorities of their own, and they worked just fine. It's so stupid, because the rest of the eIDAS is a pretty good idea. From what I can tell, this stupid addendum is the result of the certificate authority industry, which were mad that nobody trusts EV certificates anymore (because they never added the security they promised in the first place).
- EGreg 3y ago
  WebAuthn uses private keys in the secure enclave. It won’t be affected. To be clear: EU here is backdooring https encryption which protects most communication, not signing. While also moving to ban end-to-end encryption (Spain leading the way).
tansan 3y ago
Does this mean they would essentially be able to MITM attack all traffic?
- adolph 3y ago
  At a high level yes. Here is some information about Kazakhstan's effort: https://security.stackexchange.com/questions/189647/what-happened-with-kazakhstans-root-ca-mitm-policy https://security.stackexchange.com/questions/189647/what-hap...
radicalbyte 3y ago
I'm no fan of the existing system of CA - in 2023 we should have certificate pinning for sites with mechanism for checking which certificate hashes are valid for which site (via a distributed ledger or via browser vendors etc). However this amendment is disgusting. I was one of the many experts reviewing previous drafts; the timing and content of these changes are absolutely an attempt by security services to break security on the web.
- zajio1am 3y ago
  We already have such system: DANE + DNSSEC. Unfortunately browsers vendors do not implement it.
  - radicalbyte 3y ago
    Interesting - I know DNSSEC (great solution) but haven't seen DANE. From a quick glance it looks like an obvious solution which should be implemented by the browser vendors and top sites.
    - jeroenhd 3y ago
      DNSSEC is a great concept with a rather convoluted design that's based on limitations of computers in the 90s. It's obviously better to have DNSSEC than not to, but I wouldn't call it a "great solution". Case in point: the DNS client never actually validates the DNSSEC signatures, the DNS server the client uses is supposed to do that, and then simply sets a flag that says "I validated this". Perfect for recursive DNS resolvers running on localhost, but terrible for security when applied as designed. Another example: Firefox currently has encrypted client hello enables to encrypt the SNI information and help combat traffic analysis, but only if you enable DoH to ensure that the necessary DNS records are correct. Once again, Mozilla didn't trust DNSSEC to work right and opted to trust DoH servers on their word. In truth, DNSSEC isn't widely used, at least not internationally. Some TLDs have high DNSSEC usages, often because their registrar advocates for securing DNS, but with companies like Amazon failing to produce DNSSEC software that doesn't cause massive outages and TLDs like .nz going down for a day because of bad policies and management, many people don't bother. It's a shame, really, because DANE would've fixed so many problems. I attribute its failure mostly to the design decisions the people behind DNSSEC made when they released the protocol.
radicalbyte 3y ago
If this goes through without change the browser vendors should implement an UX which allows the user to disable these root certificates; ideally within different contexts. I also hope that our community produces tools to allow the cert stack on our OSes to be purged of these certificates.
- EGreg 3y ago
  Then they’ll ban that UX. Just like US banned the ability to disclose how much taxes you pay for airline tickets EDIT: for clarification, they banned disclosing it in initial communications like emails. They can do same for browsers. Apple also successfully banned apps from disclosing links to buying stuff online etc.
  - Thorrez 3y ago
    I can still see taxes and fees when I'm booking a flight. I just checked on delta.com . I can see the total taxes and fees, and the breakdown of what they are and how much each one is. I'm in the US.
    - EGreg 3y ago
      I remember HN from over a decade ago: https://www.cntraveler.com/stories/2012-01-31/spirit-airlines-right-about-government-regulations-hidden-taxes https://www.cntraveler.com/stories/2012-01-31/spirit-airline...
      - Kim_Bruning 3y ago
        Oh wow, what a way to spin it! Well, if Spirit Airlines is in fact being ingenuous, then they're -at best- one of the good guys demonstrating Why We Can't Have Nice Things. What happens is that -in some countries I've visited- people can legally advertise a particular sticker price, and then when you actually go to pay, you pay a very different amount. That threw me for a loop the first time I encountered it. I felt they were being tremendously dishonest. Where I live, you are totally permitted and encouraged to also provide an itemized price breakdown, but the sticker price is what I'm paying you at the end of the day. No surprises for the consumer.
imranhou 3y ago
It would be nice if browsers can require that certificates be co-signed by multiple, mutually distrusting root CAs, such as a hypothetical EU CA whose certificates are only trusted if also signed by an OSSF-backed root CA.
motohagiography 3y ago
I had a comment, but I think the tide has passed the point where there is any value or wisdom in speaking against the intelligence agencies.
- Communitivity 3y ago
  I would say it's not speaking against the intel agencies. The intelligence community protects us from many threats (terrorists, foreign organized crime, etc.). However, they are human, and make mistakes in the name of self-preservation, zeal for their mission, and in some cases greed. The intel agencies of different countries act as checks and balances against each other, to some degree. In some countries there are enough different intel agencies that they act as checks and balances against each other. However, the voice of the public is a great additional check on their behavior, especially when amplified by mainstream media and social media. Our elected officials want to be re-elected. Many will change their tune if they feel there is enough outcry that it might affect their poll numbers. And this is the only legal way to effect change in many countries.
  - Yeul 3y ago
    Making porn sites KYC is likely something that the public wants. There have been numerous cases of nude pics of minors ending up on "amateur" porn sites.
    - HappMacDonald 3y ago
      That's not Know Your Customer that's Know Your Producer.
  - logicchains 3y ago
    > The intelligence community protects us from many threats (terrorists, foreign organized crime, etc. Do you have any evidence for this?
  - mistrial9 3y ago
    speaking to emphasize layered representation, not the future-value of a single vote or wave of voters... Those representatives in a position to affect the arc of the actions here, especially those who work in the civilian sphere regularly, need all manner of support now.
spacebanana7 3y ago
Could we work around this by moving encryption to the application/website layer with client certificates? Please let me know if you see any reason this wouldn't work.
- johncolanduoni 3y ago
  You still have a bootstrapping problem. How do we establish what application-layer signatures are valid when a member state can forge a certificate for any origin at the transport-layer?
  - spacebanana7 3y ago
    Ideally through hardware keys, but I see how that's hard to adopt. It's not entirely unrealistic though in the context of Play Store/App Store for the first download of an app from Google/Apple servers to be protected in transport by hardware keys. Do the web browsers & operating systems face the same bootstrapping problem at the moment? At some point they must get their first certificate without using a certificate protected connection? Edit - in the context of service which exists pre regulation, the client certificate could also be derived from the user's existing login credentials.
    - samus 3y ago
      Of course they face that problem. It's a subset of the more general bootstrapping problem for a computer. So far, it mostly works as long as we can trust the hardware and we assume that the stack as we have it now is trustworthy. As soon as you download and install an OS via an MITMed connection, it's over.
  - CodeWriter23 3y ago
    By using pre-shared keys instead of public key encryption. I'm not suggesting that is a practical solution for day-to-day use; I am saying this is how LE will be evaded, if this law should come to pass. So in effect, only criminals will have encryption.
layer8 3y ago
Direct link to PDF: https://nce.mpi-sp.org/index.php/s/cG88cptFdaDNyRr/download/eIDAS%20letter.pdf https://nce.mpi-sp.org/index.php/s/cG88cptFdaDNyRr/download/...
ruiisnwn 3y ago
[dead]
hyperman1 3y ago
Https always had problems with the long list of mysterious root certificates. Maybe this is the push needed to do something about it, e.g. : * Warn when a new root is user for the first time. * Warn when a site changes its root cert. * Warn when a root cert is used for DNS names that shouldnt belong to it, e.g. wrong tld. In a broader context, the question who you trust when will become more and more important. E.g. deepfakes might push us all to digitally sign their real messages. I don't think the current root certificate systems can survive the deluge of mistrust generated by AI.
wkat4242 3y ago
This would be really easy to detect. Just look at the certificate chain. It would be trivial to make a plugin to warn the user of this, at which point they know they're under surveillance which would be worse than just doing human surveillance IMO.
- grumpy_tired 3y ago
  Almost nothing coming out of the EU that touches encryption makes sense these days, even when viewed from their own perspective. It's like they are desperate to get any kind of crypto regulation into the door before some deadline and consequences be damned. I say this with the upmost request to their politicians, but their politicians have no clue what they're doing. They clearly don't understand how any of this works. None of what they propose can solve the issues they claim they want to solve. Not this, not client-side scanning, nothing. I genuinely wonder who's "advising" them on this stuff and what their true motives are. It's sad to see the EU like this but nothing lasts forever. I feel sad for the next generations. They'll be the ones to bare the full brunt of these misguided regulations.
demarq 3y ago
Isn’t there a way to do away with CA and do it on the block chain? BUT to be clear the governments shouldn’t be compromising the security of their own people and organisations in the first place. We can’t technology our way out of this behaviour!
trinsic2 3y ago
This whole topic reminds me of Sokovia Accords Debate [0] [0]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JmjRhmk800U https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JmjRhmk800U "Governments have agendas, and agendas change" "We may not be perfect, but the safest hands are still our own"

231 points by sjm217 3y ago

"In summary, we strongly warn against the currently proposed trilogue agreement, as it fails to properly respect the right to privacy of citizens and secure online communications; without establishing proper safeguards as outlined above, it instead substantially increases the potential for harm." The Open Source Security Foundation (OpenSSF) has co-signed the Industry Joint Statement on Article 45 in the EU’s eIDAS Regulation, indicating that "Those provisions are likely to weaken the security of the Internet as a whole": https://openssf.org/blog/2023/11/02/openssf-co-signs-industry-joint-statement-on-article-45-in-the-eus-eidas-regulation/ https://openssf.org/blog/2023/11/02/openssf-co-signs-industr...

EGreg 3y ago
Good morning. It has actually been happening all around the world, not just in the EU. Given how governments encroached on crypto and ad tech and social tech and in the last 10 years, the writing is on the wall for end-to-end encryption next. They have to know ALL your communications: I wrote a summary of the countries in the world that have already undermined it, banned it or on the way to banning it: https://community.qbix.com/t/the-coming-war-on-end-to-end-encryption/214 https://community.qbix.com/t/the-coming-war-on-end-to-end-en... To be clear: EU here is backdooring https encryption. While also moving to ban end-to-end encryption (Spain leading the way).
- red_admiral 3y ago
  The pushback against ad tech - or more precisely tracking tech - is hardly the same thing. One of the EU's moves will greatly improve privacy, another one will harm it. A world is possible where we have end-to-end encryption AND a ban on profiling people online without their consent.
  - EGreg 3y ago
    Sure, and a world is possible when we have other types of tech, too. For example we can have zero-knowledge proofs to access online sites and prove we’re over 18. But the UK government has already passed a law requiring all websites to KYC their members with a passport. And Utah recently passed a law also protecting children on social sites and I asked their politicians directly how they will enforce it — a likely candidate will be requiring ID from everyone. But the governments when all is said and done don’t care about your privacy. https://www.biometricupdate.com/202309/uk-passes-online-safety-bill-paving-the-way-to-biometric-age-verification https://www.biometricupdate.com/202309/uk-passes-online-safe...
    - ruiisnwn 3y ago
      [dead]

arp242 3y ago

Dupe from yesterday: Last Chance to fix eIDAS: Secret EU law threatens Internet security - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38109494 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38109494 - Nov 2023 (280 comments)

vaylian 3y ago
That's a related but different page on the same topic
- arp242 3y ago
  It has the letter literally in the first sentence. Do we need to have a story about ever possible page on this? Of course not.

sjm217 3y ago

Some press coverage from Computer Weekly https://www.computerweekly.com/news/366557952/EU-eIDAS-reforms-should-be-actively-resisted-say-experts https://www.computerweekly.com/news/366557952/EU-eIDAS-refor... and The Record https://therecord.media/eu-urged-to-drop-law-website-authentication-certificates https://therecord.media/eu-urged-to-drop-law-website-authent...

gbil 3y ago

Good timing I think to remind you of the upcoming Firefox changes as discussed here https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38009663 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38009663 EDIT: for context

galadran 3y ago
As I commented there, you've misunderstood this change. There's a difference between certificates distributed with the OS and certificates added to the OS by a user. Right now Firefox ignores both. This change ONLY picks up the certificates added to the OS by a user. Firefox will continue to ignore the certificates included with the OS store by default.
- gbil 3y ago
  Literally in the bugzilla entry is stated either by user or administrator so either you misunderstood or you need to raise this directly to the bug for correction EDIT: for clarity, something I should have done from the beginning, I checked the affected code, they clearly remove warnings around security.enterprise_roots.enabled preference and enable it by default. This is the preference that was added back in the day to control if the browser will allow root certificates added to the OS no matter the source (user or system context) and now they change it to true by default. I think this provides more clarity but feel free to search the affected code for references that indicate that only part of the root certificate store is trusted
  - xoa 3y ago
    Late so don't if you will see this, but from the very beginning, the security.enterprise_roots.enabled preference always stated it applied to certificates added, not those included by default, eg [0]. System vs User context is still different from baked-in vs added. On macOS for example the System keychain contains certificates added that are then accessible by all users and can only be added by an Administrator, and the separate System Roots keychain holds the root certificates (151 on the Mac I'm sitting in front of) that Apple ships with the OS. Firefox reading from both the "login" and "System" keychains doesn't mean reading from "System Roots". The suggested release notes for the bug report you linked reinforces this [1] (capitalization emphasis added): >[Suggested wording]: By default, Firefox will now use TLS trust anchors (e.g., certificates) ADDED to the operating system by the user or an administrator. This works on Windows, macOS, and Android, and it can be turned off in the "Privacy & Security" section of Firefox settings, under "Certificates". If you think all of these descriptions have been wrong all along from the code, that'd definitely be worth bringing up on Bugzilla. Personally I'm happy to have it enabled by default vs always needing to remember to do so if it's working as described. I think support for one's own CAs should be encouraged even the overall UX around running your own CA is mediocre right now. ---- 0: https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/how-disable-enterprise-roots-preference https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/how-disable-enterprise-... : >"Mozilla has added an Enterprise Roots preference to Firefox as a solution to the problem. This preference can be used to import any root certificate authorities (CAs) that have been added to the operating system, to resolve your TLS connection error. You can determine if a website is relying on an imported root certificate by clicking the Site Information icon in the address bar." 1: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1848815 https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1848815

throwawaaarrgh 3y ago

Wow. Does the EU intend on basically killing their economies? Online commerce is a huge deal and would be heavily impacted if people didn't trust their connections.

mqus 3y ago
Well, for now most people do trust the states and don't know the implications of this. The EU could have just as well modified e-commerce and other pages before everything was encrypted. I also don't know how certificate pinning is impacted by this (which would mean that simply creating another cert from a EU root cert would at the very least be noticable)
turminal 3y ago
People will trust their connections regardless of this.
parski 3y ago
I don't think people know what connections are, let alone hold a position on wether to trust them or not.
severino 3y ago
Why would people worry? We already have mobile phones, televisions, cars, etc., continuously monitoring and sending private information about ourselves and our relatives to external parties that we may don't even know about. This -if comes to be true- would just mean that more parties could have access to our data. But who cares once we are already giving it for free?
- EGreg 3y ago
  We aren’t giving away all the https data for free. Not even close. Next they will ban other certs other than their own. Like Dubai did or Monaco. https://community.qbix.com/t/the-coming-war-on-end-to-end-encryption/214 https://community.qbix.com/t/the-coming-war-on-end-to-end-en...
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]

TheFuzzball 3y ago

> The proposed eIDAS revision gives Member States the possibility of inserting root certificates at will [..] That should've been a clear problem when architecting this system for anyone that knows how PKI works. Control and transparency around CAs (especially roots) is extremely important for web security. Did they not consider issuing citizens with WebAuthn certificates, or working with browser vendors to support using client certificates (since they'd only need to be trusted by the server, not the client)? I am confused.

jeroenhd 3y ago
Knowing the EU is behind this, I wouldn't be surprised if the people making decisions about this are even aware of any technology beyond Windows XP. The funny thing is that several European governments have actually operated certificate authorities of their own, and they worked just fine. It's so stupid, because the rest of the eIDAS is a pretty good idea. From what I can tell, this stupid addendum is the result of the certificate authority industry, which were mad that nobody trusts EV certificates anymore (because they never added the security they promised in the first place).
EGreg 3y ago
WebAuthn uses private keys in the secure enclave. It won’t be affected. To be clear: EU here is backdooring https encryption which protects most communication, not signing. While also moving to ban end-to-end encryption (Spain leading the way).

tansan 3y ago

Does this mean they would essentially be able to MITM attack all traffic?

adolph 3y ago
At a high level yes. Here is some information about Kazakhstan's effort: https://security.stackexchange.com/questions/189647/what-happened-with-kazakhstans-root-ca-mitm-policy https://security.stackexchange.com/questions/189647/what-hap...

radicalbyte 3y ago

I'm no fan of the existing system of CA - in 2023 we should have certificate pinning for sites with mechanism for checking which certificate hashes are valid for which site (via a distributed ledger or via browser vendors etc). However this amendment is disgusting. I was one of the many experts reviewing previous drafts; the timing and content of these changes are absolutely an attempt by security services to break security on the web.

zajio1am 3y ago
We already have such system: DANE + DNSSEC. Unfortunately browsers vendors do not implement it.
- radicalbyte 3y ago
  Interesting - I know DNSSEC (great solution) but haven't seen DANE. From a quick glance it looks like an obvious solution which should be implemented by the browser vendors and top sites.
  - jeroenhd 3y ago
    DNSSEC is a great concept with a rather convoluted design that's based on limitations of computers in the 90s. It's obviously better to have DNSSEC than not to, but I wouldn't call it a "great solution". Case in point: the DNS client never actually validates the DNSSEC signatures, the DNS server the client uses is supposed to do that, and then simply sets a flag that says "I validated this". Perfect for recursive DNS resolvers running on localhost, but terrible for security when applied as designed. Another example: Firefox currently has encrypted client hello enables to encrypt the SNI information and help combat traffic analysis, but only if you enable DoH to ensure that the necessary DNS records are correct. Once again, Mozilla didn't trust DNSSEC to work right and opted to trust DoH servers on their word. In truth, DNSSEC isn't widely used, at least not internationally. Some TLDs have high DNSSEC usages, often because their registrar advocates for securing DNS, but with companies like Amazon failing to produce DNSSEC software that doesn't cause massive outages and TLDs like .nz going down for a day because of bad policies and management, many people don't bother. It's a shame, really, because DANE would've fixed so many problems. I attribute its failure mostly to the design decisions the people behind DNSSEC made when they released the protocol.

radicalbyte 3y ago

If this goes through without change the browser vendors should implement an UX which allows the user to disable these root certificates; ideally within different contexts. I also hope that our community produces tools to allow the cert stack on our OSes to be purged of these certificates.

EGreg 3y ago
Then they’ll ban that UX. Just like US banned the ability to disclose how much taxes you pay for airline tickets EDIT: for clarification, they banned disclosing it in initial communications like emails. They can do same for browsers. Apple also successfully banned apps from disclosing links to buying stuff online etc.
- Thorrez 3y ago
  I can still see taxes and fees when I'm booking a flight. I just checked on delta.com . I can see the total taxes and fees, and the breakdown of what they are and how much each one is. I'm in the US.
  - EGreg 3y ago
    I remember HN from over a decade ago: https://www.cntraveler.com/stories/2012-01-31/spirit-airlines-right-about-government-regulations-hidden-taxes https://www.cntraveler.com/stories/2012-01-31/spirit-airline...
    - Kim_Bruning 3y ago
      Oh wow, what a way to spin it! Well, if Spirit Airlines is in fact being ingenuous, then they're -at best- one of the good guys demonstrating Why We Can't Have Nice Things. What happens is that -in some countries I've visited- people can legally advertise a particular sticker price, and then when you actually go to pay, you pay a very different amount. That threw me for a loop the first time I encountered it. I felt they were being tremendously dishonest. Where I live, you are totally permitted and encouraged to also provide an itemized price breakdown, but the sticker price is what I'm paying you at the end of the day. No surprises for the consumer.

imranhou 3y ago

It would be nice if browsers can require that certificates be co-signed by multiple, mutually distrusting root CAs, such as a hypothetical EU CA whose certificates are only trusted if also signed by an OSSF-backed root CA.

motohagiography 3y ago

I had a comment, but I think the tide has passed the point where there is any value or wisdom in speaking against the intelligence agencies.

Communitivity 3y ago
I would say it's not speaking against the intel agencies. The intelligence community protects us from many threats (terrorists, foreign organized crime, etc.). However, they are human, and make mistakes in the name of self-preservation, zeal for their mission, and in some cases greed. The intel agencies of different countries act as checks and balances against each other, to some degree. In some countries there are enough different intel agencies that they act as checks and balances against each other. However, the voice of the public is a great additional check on their behavior, especially when amplified by mainstream media and social media. Our elected officials want to be re-elected. Many will change their tune if they feel there is enough outcry that it might affect their poll numbers. And this is the only legal way to effect change in many countries.
- Yeul 3y ago
  Making porn sites KYC is likely something that the public wants. There have been numerous cases of nude pics of minors ending up on "amateur" porn sites.
  - HappMacDonald 3y ago
    That's not Know Your Customer that's Know Your Producer.
- logicchains 3y ago
  > The intelligence community protects us from many threats (terrorists, foreign organized crime, etc. Do you have any evidence for this?
- mistrial9 3y ago
  speaking to emphasize layered representation, not the future-value of a single vote or wave of voters... Those representatives in a position to affect the arc of the actions here, especially those who work in the civilian sphere regularly, need all manner of support now.

spacebanana7 3y ago

Could we work around this by moving encryption to the application/website layer with client certificates? Please let me know if you see any reason this wouldn't work.

johncolanduoni 3y ago
You still have a bootstrapping problem. How do we establish what application-layer signatures are valid when a member state can forge a certificate for any origin at the transport-layer?
- spacebanana7 3y ago
  Ideally through hardware keys, but I see how that's hard to adopt. It's not entirely unrealistic though in the context of Play Store/App Store for the first download of an app from Google/Apple servers to be protected in transport by hardware keys. Do the web browsers & operating systems face the same bootstrapping problem at the moment? At some point they must get their first certificate without using a certificate protected connection? Edit - in the context of service which exists pre regulation, the client certificate could also be derived from the user's existing login credentials.
  - samus 3y ago
    Of course they face that problem. It's a subset of the more general bootstrapping problem for a computer. So far, it mostly works as long as we can trust the hardware and we assume that the stack as we have it now is trustworthy. As soon as you download and install an OS via an MITMed connection, it's over.
- CodeWriter23 3y ago
  By using pre-shared keys instead of public key encryption. I'm not suggesting that is a practical solution for day-to-day use; I am saying this is how LE will be evaded, if this law should come to pass. So in effect, only criminals will have encryption.

layer8 3y ago

Direct link to PDF: https://nce.mpi-sp.org/index.php/s/cG88cptFdaDNyRr/download/eIDAS%20letter.pdf https://nce.mpi-sp.org/index.php/s/cG88cptFdaDNyRr/download/...

ruiisnwn 3y ago

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hyperman1 3y ago

Https always had problems with the long list of mysterious root certificates. Maybe this is the push needed to do something about it, e.g. : * Warn when a new root is user for the first time. * Warn when a site changes its root cert. * Warn when a root cert is used for DNS names that shouldnt belong to it, e.g. wrong tld. In a broader context, the question who you trust when will become more and more important. E.g. deepfakes might push us all to digitally sign their real messages. I don't think the current root certificate systems can survive the deluge of mistrust generated by AI.

wkat4242 3y ago

This would be really easy to detect. Just look at the certificate chain. It would be trivial to make a plugin to warn the user of this, at which point they know they're under surveillance which would be worse than just doing human surveillance IMO.

grumpy_tired 3y ago
Almost nothing coming out of the EU that touches encryption makes sense these days, even when viewed from their own perspective. It's like they are desperate to get any kind of crypto regulation into the door before some deadline and consequences be damned. I say this with the upmost request to their politicians, but their politicians have no clue what they're doing. They clearly don't understand how any of this works. None of what they propose can solve the issues they claim they want to solve. Not this, not client-side scanning, nothing. I genuinely wonder who's "advising" them on this stuff and what their true motives are. It's sad to see the EU like this but nothing lasts forever. I feel sad for the next generations. They'll be the ones to bare the full brunt of these misguided regulations.

demarq 3y ago

Isn’t there a way to do away with CA and do it on the block chain? BUT to be clear the governments shouldn’t be compromising the security of their own people and organisations in the first place. We can’t technology our way out of this behaviour!

trinsic2 3y ago

This whole topic reminds me of Sokovia Accords Debate [0] [0]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JmjRhmk800U https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JmjRhmk800U "Governments have agendas, and agendas change" "We may not be perfect, but the safest hands are still our own"